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Your daughter’s about to go on stage for her public school’s awards’ ceremony, everyone should be excited. Except they’re not, a daughter in tears, an exasperated mother and a principal bursting with anger. This story shows that even when schools offer uniform choice, the shaming, guilt and pressure on girls to conform to gender expectations is ever-present. And girls’ appearance can still outweigh ability. When schools offer choice – it needs to be authentic and

Story from a Young Uniform Activist Fight for what you believe in, because change is necessary. Young activist Fifteen-year-old, Jess Insall, from Glasgow, Scotland, shows just how simple uniform change can be: “Instead of saying ‘girls wear this, boys wear that’ schools can simply say ‘pupils may wear either this, or that’.” Jess shares her story below to inspire other young uniform activists to speak out and stand up for their right to wear pants (trousers):

We’re a long way from achieving gender equality however you look at it. When we ask young girls what they think, they say they feel judged on their appearance and don’t feel equal to boys, not even at school. “More than half of Australian girls report that they are most often valued for their looks, not their brains and ability.” Schools give these reasons for dress and skirt only uniforms: “It’s tradition, it’s always been

I would like to introduce you to Marlie. Marlie is not an Education Minster. She is however a powerful 8 year old girl who lives in South Australia and is in Grade 3. Marlie hates dresses, and has not chosen to wear one since she was 3 years old. At her Catholic primary school however, Marlie was required to wear a dress, in summer and in winter, just like all her female classmates. That was

I was telling a colleague recently about the work Girls’ Uniform Agenda does in advocating that all girls in all schools across Australia have the option of shorts and pants as everyday school wear. My colleague looked at me and stammered, “but, but, don’t schools have to allow that? Don’t we have legislation that means they are required to do that already?” Legal loopholes I have faced this comment before. In fact when I first

It’s no secret that the so-called ‘pink tax’ pushes up the price of many everyday household goods. But what might surprise you is that isn’t exclusive to the items the you would find in the stationery or toiletry aisles. It’s being seen in school uniform shops around the country and parents of girls are copping it. According to Dr Amanda Mergler, co-founder of Girls’ Uniform Agenda, the group’s preliminary research shows there is a clear discrepancy between

It should come as no surprise that we at Girls’ Uniform Agenda love to see girls being active. It is one of the key reasons why we push so hard for girls to have practical uniforms at school. It was a delight to walk through the gates of a prestigious all-girls school in Melbourne’s inner north west and see a group of girls in their sports uniforms kicking the football on the grass at lunch

“Looking ‘business-like’, ‘dressing the part’, power-dressing’ in the corporate world and being ‘taken seriously’ in the halls of parliament.” Preparing schoolgirls for the world of work is still given as a reason for dress and skirt-only uniform policies. Let’s look at workplaces that require women to wear a dress… The world of work has transformed dramatically over the decades for women. No Australian workplace can insist on women wearing skirts or dresses, because it’s against